Sun-Microsoft pact brings single sign-on closer to reality

A networking technology that once divided Sun and Microsoft has now become the companies' first point of cooperation.

The technology, which Sun chief executive Scott McNealy and Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer discussed here Friday, helps bridge a rift many computer users and administrators must wrestle with during the login process. Sun and Microsoft demonstrated single sign-on software that, when it's widely available, will let a person log in once to use network services that previously required separate authentications.

"We're poised to leave the computer lab now and really enter the marketplace together," Ballmer said.

The software will be incorporated into future versions of the companies' products — likely in 2006, Ballmer said. For now, it's the most concrete example of cooperation between the companies whose fierce competition was blunted somewhat by a 2004 agreement to settle legal issues, share patents and make their software interoperable.

"This was one of the main areas of contention," said Shawn Willett, an analyst with Current Analysis.

While there is cooperation on this subject, however, there remain other Microsoft and Sun software products that are firmly separated by technical, if not political, differences: Microsoft's Windows and Sun's Solaris operating system, for example; and Sun's Java software and Microsoft's analogue, .Net.

Still, the cooperation is significant for companies whose cultures and engineering styles were so far apart that it took about half a year just to get collaborating employees talking to each other.

"At times it looked like centrifugal force or antibodies were going to make this thing not happen," McNealy said. And Ballmer added that executives were impatient: "We were saying stop with the getting-to-know-you stuff and start with the progress stuff."

Next up will be cooperation in a number of other domains: storage software and hardware; unified systems management; Web services standards for messaging and event-tracking; and Windows terminal services that let PCs act like thin clients by leaving the heavy lifting of computing to central servers.

Where's Linux?
McNealy and Ballmer repeatedly emphasised how their customers pushed them into the alliance and are delighted with its progress. But some see merit in cooperation with other rivals as well.

"One thing that was not mentioned or asked: What about Linux?" said William Hurley, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group. "The brushing-over on this topic was disappointing since the vast majority of customers who operate either Windows or Solaris also use Linux."

Actually, Linux wasn't completely ignored. McNealy conspicuously omitted it from a list of operating systems he predicts will have long-term viability.

"There are two clear survivors in the operating system marketplace. Those are Solaris and Windows," McNealy said. "I'm not sure who third place is in the long term."